just one thing about it. We have _got_ to get busy." Leslie
Cairns made this announcement with special emphasis on the word "got."
Her face wore an expression of sullen determination. "Those Sanford
goody-goodies are out to do us."

"Out to do us?" repeated Natalie Weyman, with questioning inflection.
"What do you mean, Les? I failed to see any particular triumph on their
part this afternoon. They merely marched off with a seedy-looking
freshie or two. No one we wanted." Natalie shrugged her disdain of the
Lookouts' capture. "Too bad that simple-acting Walbert creature didn't
stay with dear Miss Bean. We could live without her. I have no use for
that girl."

Leslie's eyes narrowed. She banged her dessert spoon on the table with a
vicious clang and thrust her chin forward.

"Probably _you_ haven't, Miss Jealousy," she sneered. "I fail to see
anything simple about Miss Walbert. She has three times as much sense as
certain persons I could name."

"Meaning me, I suppose." Natalie's tone was equally sneering. She was
white with anger, principally at having been called "Miss Jealousy."
Leslie had often privately accused her of being jealous-hearted. This
was the first time she had ever taunted her so openly of it.

"Won't you two _please_ stop scrapping?" begged Margaret Wayne in a
tired voice. "I thought we came to the Colonial for a pleasant evening.
It has been anything but that, with you two snarling back and forth at
each other like a couple of tigers at the Zoo."

"Much obliged for the compliment," flung back Natalie in frost-bitten
accents.

"Oh, you are entirely welcome." Margaret laid provoking stress on the
"welcome."

"Looks as if the scrap might be trusted to you, Wayne. You certainly can
hold up your end of it." Leslie called her friends by their last names
merely to be insolent. "Anyone can fuss with Nat, you know. She has the
sweet disposition of a very sour pickle most of the time."

"Since that is your opinion of me, I am surprised you ever cared to be
friends with me at all." Very near to tears, Natalie managed to preserve
an offended dignity which had more effect upon Leslie than any
sarcastic retort might have had. Nor was Natalie unaware of this.
Momentarily angered, she had made a strenuous effort to choke back the
biting words just behind her lips. She always remembered one cold fact
in time. It never paid in the long run to quarrel with Leslie.

"Oh, you are not so bad when one has grown u